Sports GPS watches

[matt_theforce]

For the last 2 years I've had a Samsung Gear S3 Frontier and I've had nothing but trouble with the sports side of things. 

 

I'm looking to replace it, I'm not looking for a Smart Watch as I don't use half the features. 

 

Requirements

* Built in GPS

* Budget £250

* Cycling/hiking stats

* Good battery life when used for activity tracking

 

It would be nice if I could link it to a Saris h3 turbo trainer or Zwift but not essential. 

 

What are your experiences/recommendations?

 

Matthew

Edited 21 November, 2020 by DarkPeakCycles

[mac11irl]

interested too...

 

though id like one that does sleep tracking too

[skomaz]

Microwear H series??

[J.R.]

I didn't have any requirements but now I have one & know what is usefull to me I would have the same requirements if looking again.

 

I have a Garmin forerunner 235 for 3 years now and it has been excellent in respect of all the things mentioned, the battery life is just showing signs of being reduced, I am not tracking any activities at present because of the confinement & it needs charging every 14 days, might even be 10 which is less than before.

 

The sleep tracking is very good but it cant tell if I am sleeping or awake reading, but to be fair I'm not an insomniac and rest is as good as sleep, there is no movement and the heart rate is at minimum so I might as well be asleep.

 

It is the app that makes my watch so good, with my eye problems this year I cant really read the stats from the watch & in any case they are very limited, its the app that does all the number crunching, an example the watch will have recorded your GPS tracking but its the app that adds the elevations and makes the corresponding calculations.

 

I would say as long as the watch will function & can be used easily then the app functionality is perhaps more important.

 

It is very good at measuring the deep sleep which is what is important to me and when I awake refreshed I can see why.

 

It showed me sleeping for 3 hours till 2pm yesterday but it was while the watch was charging!

[MarkyG82]

I have a polar vantage m that is bang on budget. Battery love is 2 weeks with multiple activities. Links to my cadence/speed sensor on the bike so should do your trainer. Should work with swift too.

Activity type is really customisable. You can set the poling for GPS to really long to give more battery. I have done this for walking although not used it for that much this year.

Wore it daily up to a couple of weeks ago when I got a smart watch for birthday. Still use it for exercise though.

[Gissin]

I'm a big fan of the Suunto range. I've got a peak 3 which I use for sport and it's been good, albeit a bit old now. 

 

 

https://www.cwsellors.co.uk/collections/suunto-watches/products/suunto-watch-suunto-3-slate-grey-copper-ss050415000 

https://www.cwsellors.co.uk/collections/suunto-watches/products/suunto-watch-suunto-5-all-black-ss050299000 

 

Edited 23 November, 2020 by Gissin

[matt_theforce]

On 22/11/2020 at 21:16, skomaz said:

Microwear H series??

I've never heard or seen them so will do some investigating

 

 

On 22/11/2020 at 23:29, MarkyG82 said:

I have a polar vantage m that is bang on budget. Battery love is 2 weeks with multiple activities. Links to my cadence/speed sensor on the bike so should do your trainer. Should work with swift too.

Activity type is really customisable. You can set the poling for GPS to really long to give more battery. I have done this for walking although not used it for that much this year.

Wore it daily up to a couple of weeks ago when I got a smart watch for birthday. Still use it for exercise though.

I have a friend who has been using Polar devices for years, he is currently using the Polar M430 and he really likes it, I have to say I much prefer the look of the Vantage M though.  

 

 

On 23/11/2020 at 12:57, Gissin said:

I'm a big fan of the Suunto range. I've got a peak 3 which I use for sport and it's been good, albeit a bit old now. 

 

 

https://www.cwsellors.co.uk/collections/suunto-watches/products/suunto-watch-suunto-3-slate-grey-copper-ss050415000 

https://www.cwsellors.co.uk/collections/suunto-watches/products/suunto-watch-suunto-5-all-black-ss050299000 

 

I've a couple of customers who use various Suunto sensor's & they seem to be extremely reliable. I do like the look of the 5 all black

 

My wife went to work and forgot to put her Garmin Vivoactive 3 on yesterday so I went out for a ride to try it out, I was really pleased with the data I could see from it, the heart rate and GPS tracking was pretty much identical to my MIO315 cycling computer & chest heart rate monitor.  The Vivoactive 3 is lacking in some features that I would like but that has got me researching the Vivoactive 4.

 

At the moment I have the following

Comparisons to be done on : Polar Vantage M / Garmin Vivoactive 4 / Suunto 5 all black

 

Investigation to carry out on the Microwear H series

 

so many choices out there!!

[Gissin]

yeah absolutely I would say the data from my suunto is excellent and very accurate, I like the fact you can use the same HR monitor / accessories across different watches.  they do a bike sensor too if that's your thing.

mines about 5-6 years old but battery is still excellent(in fact I've only recently replaced the HR monitor battery) , works the same as day 1 and the sapphire glass is still pretty much un marked  but the bezel is showing signs of use after being scraped against rock walls,  MTB crashes etc.  the only thing that lets it down is the software / app side for loading pre made maps / creating routes, can be quite confusing - this could be the age of mine and has probably improved with the newer models.

 

My friend recently brought the Garmin 5s , unfortunately due to covid lockdowns and self isolations we've not had a chance to test it out properly but looks an impressive piece of kit and is equally as well put together as my suunto. Garmin would definitely be a consideration for me when I eventually change. 

[Papfox]

It's a little more than your budget but have you looked at the Garmin Venu (currently in the sale)?

[matt_theforce]

Update.

 

I made the decision to buy a Garmin and bought the VivoActive 4 Black/Slate, after a little shopping around I managed to get it for just over £200 which I'm happy with.

 

I've been using it now for just under a month and thought I'd share a few things about it.

 

I've compared the GPS & Heartrate monitor against my MIO Cyclo 315 & chest strap at the same time while out on a number of hikes & bike rides & the Garmin is very impressive, no missed data/no high or low data & almost identical to my MIO

 

Likes

* It's a nice lightweight watch (compared to my old Samsung Gear 3 Frontier)

* Application integration to & from Strava/Zwift (more Garmin Connect that the watch)

* Sleep Tracking and Body Battery seem quite accurate & often mirror my mood that day

* Easy to customise the menu's/data displayed during activities & access the app you want

* When manually starting an activity the GPS picks up really quickly (tried from several different places)

* Battery - charging time is very quick & lasts very well (approx 4 days for me).  I walk 3-4miles every morning(with GPS due to a very active dog), I also do a similar length walk in the evening too & sleep with the watch on (only take it off for showering).  I have disabled PulseOx.  I only turn bluetooth on once a day to sync my activities & its on for approx 10min (not that it needs that long).

When on being used for an activity the battery life with just GPS will certainly outlast what I'm capable of, I've done a few 3-4 hour rides/hikes & I've been very impressed at how little the battery is used.

 

Dislikes

* It is advertised as supporting Turbo Trainers but I found out after I bought it that it doesn't support smart turbo trainers (never mind), I can still use my chest strap and my rides auto sync with Garmin Connect & incorporated into the watch

* The screen is a little sensitive and often lights up when moving around in bed

 

Overall I'm very happy with my choice & for the odd 1hr ride I now don't take my MIO bike computer and just use my watch.  

Edited 29 December, 2020 by DarkPeakCycles

[J.R.]

The cycle tracking feature is of interest, my bike is a Dawes, will it only work with bikes from Menstrual and who sells them?

 

It does seem to have new features that I would like, my Garmin Forerunner 235 will not give me the option of walking or hiking as an activity, I have to log it as a run & then remember to edit it to a walk when uploaded to my phone.

 

Also i was dissapointed to find that the analogue watch face has to be paid for and downloaded, without glasses I cannot read the LCD time whereas an analogue time display is readable even in poor lighting.

 

Both of these things could probably be resolved by someone that does not mind spending their life using their smartphone.

 

I like the O2 monitoring, I had been considering buying an oxymeter.

[matt_theforce]

19 minutes ago, J.R. said:

It does seem to have new features that I would like, my Garmin Forerunner 235 will not give me the option of walking or hiking as an activity, I have to log it as a run & then remember to edit it to a walk when uploaded to my phone.

 

Also i was dissapointed to find that the analogue watch face has to be paid for and downloaded, without glasses I cannot read the LCD time whereas an analogue time display is readable even in poor lighting.

 

Both of these things could probably be resolved by someone that does not mind spending their life using their smartphone.

 

I like the O2 monitoring, I had been considering buying an oxymeter.

 

My sister has a Forerunner and has said the same about her activities.  The only tweak I sometimes need to do is if I use a different bike (known as Gear, possibly on the Forerunner as you can have multiple running shoes)

 

The VivoActive allows you to manually start a walk or have it start automatically, it is very slow to finish the activity though so best done manually.

 

Analogue watch faces are free on the VivoActive 4

 

The VivoActive 4 does seem quite adaptable to multiple sports

[J.R.]

The battery is starting to age a bit on mine but its autonomy is far longer than you seem to be getting, running 3-4 hours a week and with the bluetooth on all the time I was getting more than 10 days autonomy, my activity profile is different with the lockdown but its down to a week or less with similar activity tracking.

 

I recall there was a GPS setting that did not use all the different satellites that would use the battery less.

 

I guess that you use the same Garmin connect app as I am beginning to see several features that my watch does not support, I'm still very pleased with it though and am not one to change something that is still functioning.

 

I guess others sell their on E-bay when they upgrade like mobile phones.

[J.R.]

No multiple running shoes on my watch, I frequently forget to start the watch on a run or walk so auto start would be good. It auto starts when I stop for traffic, a pause or a pee.

Edited 29 December, 2020 by J.R.

[matt_theforce]

3 minutes ago, J.R. said:

The battery is starting to age a bit on mine but its autonomy is far longer than you seem to be getting, running 3-4 hours a week and with the bluetooth on all the time I was getting more than 10 days autonomy, my activity profile is different with the lockdown but its down to a week or less with similar activity tracking.

 

I recall there was a GPS setting that did not use all the different satellites that would use the battery less.

 

I guess that you use the same Garmin connect app as I am beginning to see several features that my watch does not support, I'm still very pleased with it though and am not one to change something that is still functioning.

 

I should be able to get an extra couple of days out of the battery with some GPS tweaks as I haven't looked at them yet, GPS is used for around 1-2hours everyday just with dog walking. 

Just changing the auto start for walking from 10min to 15min has increased the battery life by a day, I pop down to feed the horses twice a day and that is a 10min walk each way so got picked up as an activity too.

 

I've still lots of features to look at and no doubt some to disable, I turned everything on when I set it up and slowly turning off things that aren't of use to me.

[J.R.]

So it sounds like if you have been walking beyond that 15 minute threshold its logs it as an activity back from its start time, very smart but to do that it must be saving the last 15 minutes of GPS activity all the time so effectively its on GPS all the time, I bet that is hammering your autonomy.

 

Mine only connects to satellites when I manually select an activity.

 

I still use an old school 2004 Nokia mobile phone which only needs charging once a week, that is my reference, smartphone users will be used to charging their devices all the time, as far as a watch is concerned I think it should tell the time for several years before needing the battery changing, these activity watches should have a seperate old school battery to run an old school LCD time display when the bells & whistles battery is discharged.

 

Is there any way to replace the li-ion cells in these watches? It looks to me to be a throwaway job when the battery fails or needs constant charging.

[matt_theforce]

Another neat feature found, I can broadcast my HR from my watch via bluetooth to my laptop when using Zwift chest strap no longer needed  (battery life is reduced slightly using this feature though).

 

I've turned the auto start walking off and now only start it when I want it and have noticed an improvement in battery life which is now out-weighed by broadcasting my HR on Zwift.

 

I'm still very happy with this watch

 

 

[JohnMcL7]

Good to hear you're getting on well with the Garmin as I have a Fenix 5s myself I bought at launch pretty much, worn it every day and still working great.

 

I was using it with Zwift for HR as well as broadcasting to an Edge and when I'd compared it against the chest strap I found it a bit slower to respond and underread a bit but that was fine for me.  However I started with Zwift last year to make up for not being able to go out group rides and I was getting suspicious about its heartrate figures and was concerned because I'd had thyroid issues just before the pandemic and never got a proper all clear because I couldn't get tested any more.  So I bought a new chest strap and I was shocked at how different the results were, the watch showed an average of 83bpm and a max of 136bpm while the chest strap showed an average of 168bpm and a max of 184 bpm.  I'm sure the chest strap was right because I was doing a race and going hard at it which made me wonder is the watch faulty but the resting/24 hour monitoring looks good and out on an MTB ride it also looked good with an average of 140 and max of 190 which felt about right.

 

I'm curious how your watch is doing?  Whenever I read anything online it's not helpful because people just rubbish optical HR monitors and that's the end of it.

[matt_theforce]

On 16/07/2021 at 00:58, JohnMcL7 said:

Good to hear you're getting on well with the Garmin as I have a Fenix 5s myself I bought at launch pretty much, worn it every day and still working great.

 

I was using it with Zwift for HR as well as broadcasting to an Edge and when I'd compared it against the chest strap I found it a bit slower to respond and underread a bit but that was fine for me.  However I started with Zwift last year to make up for not being able to go out group rides and I was getting suspicious about its heartrate figures and was concerned because I'd had thyroid issues just before the pandemic and never got a proper all clear because I couldn't get tested any more.  So I bought a new chest strap and I was shocked at how different the results were, the watch showed an average of 83bpm and a max of 136bpm while the chest strap showed an average of 168bpm and a max of 184 bpm.  I'm sure the chest strap was right because I was doing a race and going hard at it which made me wonder is the watch faulty but the resting/24 hour monitoring looks good and out on an MTB ride it also looked good with an average of 140 and max of 190 which felt about right.

 

I'm curious how your watch is doing?  Whenever I read anything online it's not helpful because people just rubbish optical HR monitors and that's the end of it.

 

I'm still quite pleased with my watch, the heart rate monitor is still giving me results that are similar to what I used to get with my chest strap. 

 

My watch has been kept up-to date with software updates and I've not noticed any differences in performance/battery life etc.

 

The only sporadic issue is when starting an activity, sometimes the GPS connects straight away, other times it can take 5-10minutes & it happens across both walking & cycling activities.

[Gerrycan]

I've got a Fitbit Versa 3 that I've been using for about 6 months and while it is not as dedicated a sports watch as the Garmins it is proving to be quite good value at the discounted price I paid.

The particular plusses for me is that it is light, has a comparatively long battery life in normal non-gps mode (5 days), and because it fits so well on my skinny wrists the heart rate monitor appears to be very accurate and compares favourably with a chest monitor (which I dislike wearing anyway).

The focus is mainly on encouragement of activity, which was a little annoying getting notifications when you meet the goals they set for you but I've got used to them now.

 

It does a thing called 'Active minutes' where you are awarded values related to certain heart rates so in my case it seems over a 100bpm is one point per minute and over 130bpm is two points per minute of exercise. The target for the week is 150 Active minutes so about 23 minutes a day so not big objectives to say the least.

One active day at home I did an 8km walk with my wife in the morning and then later a 7.5km run along the beach, plus shopping (it counts) added up to 220 Active minutes for the day.

One active day at work pushing loaded trolleys, packing and unpacking etc registered 380 Active minutes.

I found that very interesting.

 

Good at providing stats for specific nominated activities which are manually selected, stopped and started to activate the gps. Obviously battery consumption then increases .

Overall a good unit so far, especially for the price. If I can get 3 years out of it I will be happy but the internet suggests reliability is not necessarily one of its strong points.